Today the sanctuary community is celebrating the fourth annual Animal Sanctuary Caregiver Day. Here at CSNW, we celebrated a day early because our staff were all here at the same time for Honey B’s birthday party and you can’t share pizza and ice cream over Zoom. Normally we don’t eat where the chimps can see us but there’s not enough room for us to maintain our distance indoors. Notice someone spying on us?
Not wanting to leave Jamie out of the celebration, the team finished lunch quickly and went on a run around the hill.
Burrito tried his best to keep up.
This is what impresses me most about our staff and volunteers. We set aside a brief moment for everyone to relax and eat and all they can think about is making Jamie happy.
I also appreciate the thoughtfulness that goes into their work. Yesterday, Honey B had her first birthday celebration here at CSNW, and the staff, led by Chad, our Enrichment Coordinator, spent weeks brainstorming ideas for her party. It’s easy to throw a party, but this had to be a Honey B party. And it was a hit – so much so that Honey B will not let the party end. Seriously, she won’t let us go in to clean up. I guess we can keep the party going another day? (Update: At dinner she reluctantly let us close off the mezzanine. I made a deal with her that we’d move all the stuff, clean, and then put it all back again. She is pleased to once again be buried in her birthday mess.)
The most difficult thing about being a caregiver is not the physical work, though it can be exhausting. It’s the caring. It’s the relentless searching, day after day, for new ways to make others happy, even though you know it’s never going to be good enough. It is hard and it wears you out. I’m glad we have a day to formally acknowledge the importance of sanctuary caregivers. We are so grateful to our staff and volunteers, and to everyone else in our sanctuary community, for never letting up.
I’m sure this guy is grateful, too.
Tomorrow we celebrate the 12th Anniversary of the arrival of the Cle Elum Seven and Negra’s 47th birthday with our first ever virtual celebration. We hope you will celebrate with us! Join us on at this link for The Queen’s Brunch Facebook Live virtual event at 11:00 am Pacific Time on June 13th (you don’t need to have a Facebook account to watch!).
